Sometimes composers should let their work speak for themselves,
but happily Sir Harrison Birtwistle didn’t do this last
Monday night, offering a model of modest, quite hilarious and
ultimately generous commentary. Over the years I’ve suffered
through some eye-rollingly pretentious “explanatory notes”
about music, usually uncomfortably impenetrable supporting material
that does absolutely nothing to further one’s understanding
or appreciation of the actual sounds on hand. This occasion, however,
was a pleasantly congenial mix of interview and live performance,
and Birtwistle’s remarks added often-wry observations. He
is often inspired to do his best work by writers, but wisely resists
trying to outdo their impact, allowing their powerful words do
most of the talking, and ultimately leaves the audience to observe
the resulting fusion with his striking music.

Interviewed by the always perceptive Ara Guzelimian, Sir Harrison
introduced his Five Distances for Five Instruments by
defining the difference between a string quartet and a woodwind
quintet – in his view, the latter being a sort of play in
which the actors are not related. Then in a more philosophical
vein, he offered a window into his own compositional process,
describing the miles of stone walls in northern England, created
by piling rocks on top of one another. The trick is to complete
a wall by “finding the right stone for the right space”
– a rather sensible metaphor for the workaday craft of composing
that often accompanies its inspirational component. One could
sense this solidity in Five Distances, a throbbing exercise
for five musicians who “play catch” with one another,
each emerging with a melodic line while the others jab back sometimes
almost angrily in counterpoint. The five musicians were Karen
Bogardus, Michael Lowenstern, Daniel Grabois, Peter Kolkay and
Jacqueline Leclair, all in excellent, playful form.

Perhaps the most startling was the “Nine Settings of Lorine
Niedecker,” to my ears the most uncharacteristically Birtwistle-ian
work of the night. The texts resemble haiku, with sparely written
parts for soprano and cello that are much more minimal and exposed
than usual for this composer, and further I would imagine, very
difficult to perform. However, Susan Narucki, one of the most
glowing advocates of contemporary music, made it sound easy, and
was having a very good night, astonishingly clear and accurate
in her intonation. Her partner, cellist Priscilla Lee, was superbly
assured, with splendid, commanding tone, nuanced phrasing and
neatly executed attacks. I particularly enjoyed the second poem
in the cycle: My friend tree / I sawed you down / but I [must]
attend / an older friend / the sun, in which Narucki reached
a thrilling fortissimo on the final word.

In Birtwistle’s introductory remarks he mused, “Verse
is very good for the ‘small room’ [i.e., the bathroom]
– exactly the right length,” causing ripples of laughter
in the audience. So when Birtwistle was joined by poet David Harsent
to discuss The Woman and the Hare, Harsent added with
deadpan accuracy, “I now have an indelible image of Harry,
reading my work.” Harsent explained that the spoken parts
are intended to be “factual” whilst the sung portions
are more emotional and lyrical. But no explanation could prepare
one for the chilling result, as Lisa Bielawa intoned the spoken
parts with an undercurrent of dread: Her flesh falls from
the bone. The worst has gone / to the fire, the rest is mine.
/ She is changed, she is all-but meat. / Cut and come again. I
lift my hand and eat. Narucki and the rest of the ensemble
rounded out the cast in a performance that must have caused some
to shudder.

I’d heard Tragoedia once before, when Ensemble
Sospeso gave it its New York premiere in 1998. If this performance
didn’t quite reach the same level of electricity, it was
still excellent, and confirmed that the piece is one of the composer’s
most involving. With Bridget Kibbey’s gorgeous harp positioned
dead center (and the instrument’s black wooden column looking
like a big exclamation point, a savvy friend suggested), the strings
at left and winds at right, the group seems to constantly refer
back to the harp, as if a mediator in some ancient game. Kibbey
was particularly riveting, but again it takes musicians with a
high level of expertise to bring off Birtwistle’s work.
And in the two large works, Brad Lubman did a fine job navigating
this music.